Clinton's Dive Log

12/19/04
Diving off of the Escapade with Joe and Delia. First dive was at Lunaticos. Vis was a very nice 40 feet or more and we had fun circling the top of the pinnacle while wishing we had 21/35 instead of 30/30. Somewhere near the end of the dive the anchor slipped which was odd since we had seen it no more than 2 minutes ealier as we moved back and forth on the top of the ridge. Somehow we didn't see it slip, it was there one minute and gone the next. Oh well, free ascent it is then.

Our second dive was at Ballbuster. Vis here wasn't as nice - maybe 20-25 feet. The anchor was next to the pinnacle but just far enough that it took us a bit of work to actually find it. By then we had just enough time for a full circuit before returning to the line. It was getting late so Jim really wanted us to come up the anchor line. We did find a small wolf eel. Ballbuster is looking really beaten up these days; especially the bryozonans. I hope this isn't diver damage.

Dive 3 was back at the dock. I jumped in to film some Melibe nudibranchs that were on a piling while Jim finished cleaning the boat. This was a frustrating exercise as there was nothing to brace myself against and just enough water movement to make filming nudibranchs tricky. Still cool to see these guys in Monterey though.

12/12/04
Diving with Kirk Bloede and John Heimann at Point Lobos. First dive was with Kirk while John and Beto went scootering. Entry was interesting as we got in at the highest high tide I've ever seen a Lobos. The water was sloshing up into the parking lot. Despite a good sized NW swell the water was very clear with 40 foot vis or more. Kirk and started at the middle reef and then over to Cannery Point Wall. Highlights included several very large cabezon and several visits from a harbor seal.

John and I then teamed up for dive two. We mostly stayed on the middle reef where we got another harbor seal. I shot a quick movie of it nibbling on John's fins. I also found a Cadlina sparsa.

12/04/04
Wow, a whole month off from diving! That doesn't happen often (and I can only hope won't happen often in the future). As it happens I spent one weekend in Seattle for a colleague's wedding, the next 2 recovering from the sinus infection I contracted there and last weekend was Thanskgiving. Anyway, I was diving Saturday with Mike Jimenez and Josh Umsted from the Escapade. Conditions were very nice in advance of a big storm coming through. First dive was at the Fanshell Beach Pinnacles. Visibility was in excess of 60 feet and the highlight was finding a big male wolf eel more or less in the open.

Dive two was at Outer Butterfly House. For this dive I buddied up with Jim Capwell while Josh and Mike formed their own team. Vis wasn't quite as nice as at Cypress Point; call it 30 feet but was still fine. Highlights included the usual hydrocoral and blue rockfish. I also found a small Triopha maculata on a Macrocystis stipe while doing our safety stop.

10/30/04
Diving with John Heimann at Stewart's Point trying to get better images of Trapania velox. The weather didn't cooperate like last week, nor did the vis. As a result we spent the dive in a washing machine with 10 foot vis looking for a sub 1" nudibranch. Even made me queasy. Getting out without damaging the camera proved to be an intersting challange. I clipped it off onto a float using a spool and my weight belt as an anchor while John and I ditched our gear. This worked except for the part where the weight belt went missing during the camera retrieval. Oh well - and no images of the nudibranch either. We were going to do a second dive for practice but decided to call it a day.

10/23/04
Stewart's Point and North Monastery with Mike and Josh.

In addition to Josh's report above I'd like to note that we found a really interesting nudibranch on the first dive at Stewart's Point; Trapania velox. Mike's photos were out of focus but just good enough to make a positive ID. This is, I believe, a range extension for this species North from Morro Bay.

10/16/04
Diving with Ian and Gary off of the Escapade. This was to have been a Big Sur trip but various scheduling conflicts prevented that. As a result the trip became a mixed tech and rec charter. I decided to stay on the recreational side. First dive was at the Needle. I think we missed the actual needle but the reef was very pretty nonetheless. Nothing particularly unusual but it was a nice dive.

The second dive was at Mono Lobo. Again a nice dive but nothing really out of the ordinary. We did have a harbor seal come visit us a couple of times.

10/04/04
Back from Baja. I was on the Nautilus Explorer diving the west coast of Baja from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas. Details forthcoming but suffice to say it was a fun trip.

09/19/04
Diving the metridium fields and the deep sand beyond them with John Heimann. Both of us were just looking for some relaxing diving to sort out some gear issues and this dive was just the ticket. Vis was pretty bad out to a depth of about 50 feet. Below that it suddenly and dramatically opened up to around 35 feet. The murky layer looked like clouds floating above us. We ended up exploring a lot more reef and getting quite a bit deeper (80 feet) than I normally do at this site. We didn't see anything unusual but it was a nice pleasant dive.

09/05/04 - 09/06/04
I was assisting Joe Talavera with his DIRF class this weekend with Mike Jimenez being one of the students. Vis was in the miso-soup kind of area but it was probably about perfect for the class which as usual went well and all of the students showed a lot of improvement.

08/22/04 - 08/29/04
Dave and I were in the Channel Islands with JJ, David Rhea, Bob Sherwood, Anthony Rue and various other GUE divers. Photos and video frames from the trip can be found here.

08/15/04
Judgement day for the shootout. I was up pretty late editing my sea lion footage. Turned out OK and the judges seemed to agree as I ended up wiht a second place (ironically to a video about nudibranchs!). Mike did well too with a whole bunch of honerable mentions and one second. Results can be seen here: here.

08/14/04
Monterey Photo Shootout weekend. I was diving with Mike Jimenez off of the Escapade. First dive was at Lobos Rocks where despite slightly disappointing vis I got some pretty good sea lion footage. Dive two was at the pinnacles. Pete and Joe were scootering and I got some shots of them buzzing by but the water was sufficiently green that it didn't really come out. I did find a wolf eel for Mike to shoot. I sat out dive 3 at Aumentos as my sinuses were acting up a bit.

08/08/04
Diving with Mike Jimenez and Pete Gelbman. My doubles regulators are in the shop for some much needed service (made all the more so by sqaushing one of the second stages last week). As such I was single tank diving this weekend. With nice flat weather we decided to give Stewart's Point a try. Vis looked nice and it was certainly flat. We dropped down onto the sand at the edge of the kelp and had just started swimming into the kelp forest when I found myself face to face with a very large skate swimming right at me. Conveniently it then settled onto the sand for a quick portrait before swimming away. Sadly this Skate didn't appear long for this world; it's probably a bad sign if moon snails are eating holes in your back!

The rest of the dive was less eventful but it was still a very nice tour through the kelp. After a stop for lunch at RG Burger we rang up John Heimann who was finishing up teaching an open water class. He wanted to get in a fun dive so we met him at Otter Cove. Vis here was much reduced compared to Carmel; 10-15 instead of 25-30. Still, it proved to be fun as we had several harbor seal encounters and finished up the dive by finding a pair of thornback rays.

Mike got some nice photos which you can see here.

07/31/04
Bay Area Underwater Explorers had the Cypress Sea chartered all day on saturday for some off-the-beaten-path diving and exploration. We headed way south to Point Sur to dive the Big Sur Bank. This is a reef 3-5 miles offshore of the point. In places it comes up to within 120 feet of the surface. We've been itching to dive it and finally go our chance saturday.

When left the dock at 6AM conditions in the bay and in Carmel were really flat and calm. When we arrived onsite at the bank around 8:30 it was quite windy and a bit choppy but it was clearly a happening place based on the huge cloud of birds working the area. There were even a number of albatrosses which is a bit rare for this area. We started looking for dive sites at the north end of the bank but after some driving around decided it didn't look sufficiently vertical. The other charted high spot is at the south end of the reef so we headed down there for a look. Jackpot! We very quickly found a pinnacle that started at 120 feet and dropped off dramatically to 170. Down went the anchor, followed shortly by the first dive team.

Susan and Beto were first, Pete, Dave and I second with Will, Kevin and Nick making up team 3. Vis at the surface was murky with barely 15 feet of visibility. At about 30 feet it cleared up dramatically and we could see Sue and Beto arriving on the reef nearly 100 feet below us. As we approached the bottom I could scarcely believe my eyes as I think this one rock has more hydrocoral growing on it than exists in the entirety of Carmel Bay. Swimming above it was probably the biggest school of blue rockfish I've ever seen. After lingering a bit we decided to press deeper and look at the base of the pinnacle.

The deeper parts of the reef consisted mostly of a boulder slope with less encrusting life. On the other hand there were exotic rockfish all over the place; starrys, vermilions, rosies, treefish and even several yelloweye rockfish. Within a minute or two Beto and Susan started frantically signaling us. Since Susan had been excitedly talking about octopus prior to the dive I had a funny feeling what it was. Sure enough I soon found myself looking at about the largest octopus I've ever seen. This one was nearly the size of Beto and out in the open too.

After our octo experience Pete Dave and I moved up to the top of the pinnacle to admire the hydrocoral. Beto and Susan reported later finding a wolf eel out swimming around and I think Team 3 saw one as well. Deco was uneventful and right as we surfaced we were greeted by an albatross which was floating just a few feet from our marker buoy.

Phil and Marcos got in during our surface interval and also reported a great dive. If Phil's truly excited about a dive you know you're onto something!

Dive two was at a sister pinnacle a few hundred feet away. This time I was diving with Susan and Beto. It had a totally different feel to it as the murky layer was now present all the way down to 60 feet which really cut down on the available light. Visibility was still great at depth though. The dive really felt like a night dive and it was really eerie being able to see the lights of other divers 100 feet away in the inky blackness. While we didn't see any octopus on this dive we did see even more fish than on the first one. I've never seen schooling vermilion rockfish before. Loads of lingcod too. Dave and Pete apparently found a huge swim-through with a vase sponge in the middle of it.

The ride home gave everyone a chance for a much needed nap. I don't think many of us had gotten much sleep the night before and I, for one, was truly exhausted. I also learned that you have to be extra careful unloading gear when you tired as if you're not you might drop a tank on one of your second stages! Doh! Anyway despite that it was a truly great day and I want to say thanks to everyone that made it possible; Phil, Xcott and Tad on the Cypress Sea, Pete for organizing and Dionna for helping out topside and taking pictures (which we'll be posting soon I hope).

Speaking of pictures...

:-D

07/24/04
Diving with David Chamberlin on the Cypress Sea today with conditions that were almost too good to be true; 4-5 foot NW swell, no wind, sunny skies and blue water! First dive of course was at Flintstones. If this isn't one of the 2 or 3 best dives in the whole world I don't know what is. As we started the dive Dave decided to head South instead of going to the North side as we usually do. Mostly this was due to the current which he wanted to swim into at the beginning of the dive. We descended down the South side of the South pinnacle and into a bowl shaped depression which was about 115 feet deep. With walls on all sides sheltering the area the life wasn't particularly rich and I started mumbling under my breath about the wisdom of Dave's decision.

Just as I was working up a good rant I found myself face to face with a very, very large octopus. In a flash my opinion of Dave's navigation changed 180 degrees and I decided that he was, in fact, a genius. The octo was out in the open and seemed not to care about our presence. Eventually it decided to go for a walk or whatever an octopus gait is called. It crawled up the crack we had descended along, worked across the top of the pinnacle and came to a stop within tentacle reach of the anchor. During this time 2 different dive teams came within our field of view. We did our best to get their attention and direct them to the action but got very little response. Eventually one of them came down for a look though the other 3 evidently had more interesting things to look at!

After about 50 mintues with the octo still in plain sight at the top of the reef we reluctantly called the dive and headed up. Xcott had given us strict instructions to be punctual due to Frank being the afternoon charter. By the time we finished the deco we were about 30 minutes overdue so we bagged the second dive to keep the boat on schedule. Seemed a fair trade to us!

The third dive was at Aumentos and Dave and I used the dive for practice. Conditions were pretty good in the bay too. Below an ugly surface layer of muck the vis opened up to about 40 feet or so. No molas this time, though.

After some Thai food and a nap in the car I met up with Gary Banta for a night dive on the Escapade. Eric's Pinnacle was to be the spot and as usual it was an entertaining night dive. Among other things we found a large wolf eel back in a crack.

Some video frames of the giant octopus can be seen here.

07/18/04
Boat diving again, this time with Dave Chamberlin and again on the afternoon Escapade trip. As the boat was mostly filled with students doing their advanced class we stayed in the bay. First dive was at Aumentos where it was all Molas, all the time. We probably saw twenty of them them in total. The water was green but still featured a good 40 foot of vis at depth.

The second dive was at Eric's and Dave and I focused on skills practice. As usual with these sorts of dives we concluded that we need even more practice.

07/17/04
Ahhh, boat diving! Mexican nudibranch expert Alicia Hermosillo and her friend Roberto Chavez were in town from Puerto Vallarta. I always enjoy diving with fellow slugophiles, particularly ones like Alicia that know more about them than I do. We were on the afternoon Escapade trip and after a little arm-twisting Jim took the boat around the corner for the first dive despite only having 6 divers on board. Thanks Jim!

The first dive was at the Outer Pinnacles, it was sunny, flat calm and the water a beautiful clear blue. What's not to like? Alicia had mentioned that in addition to slugs she wanted to see a Wolf Eel. Amazingly she found one about 5 minutes into the dive. After some fun with the eel we poked around the hydrocoral in the shallow part of the reef looking for branchs. The safety stop featured a parade of jellies drifting through the 50 foot vis. I love it when the diving conditions cooperate for out of towners.

The second dive was at Ballbuster. Vis near the surface was iffy but it opened up very nicely to better than 50 feet at depth. I think we managed to find 7 or 8 species of nudibranch including a very large Dirona albolineata. We also managed to find another wolf eel though the big male that lives on the west side of the rock wasn't home. We somehow missed the anchor on the way up and drifted off a bit during the deco, but hey - that's why you bring a marker bag and spool right?

07/11/04
Back shore diving again, this time with Dave Chamberlin. Ugh. I hate shore diving. Monastery looked a bit big so we wandered over to Carmel River. I'd never done this dive before and was pleasantly surprised. The walk down the stairs wasn't so bad and we had a very nice dive in the kelp with lots of blue rockfish. The climb up the sandy berm getting out was, uhh, interesting but overall no worse than climbing out at Monastery. Vis was about 30 feet.

Dive two was at the Breakwater where we got some good practice in. I'll call the vis around 20 feet.

07/10/04
Shore diving with Mike Jimenez. We took a look at North Monastery but decided it was a tad rough to get in there with cameras. We then went back to Monterey and for a change of pace went diving at Coral Street. After seeing a harbor seal a few times on the swim out the rest of the dive was uneventful though it did prove to be a nice tour of the kelp forest.

Dive number two was at Breakwater where we wandered around the outer edge of the kelp that sits between MacAbee and the Breakwater. We found the wreck of a small catamaran which I hadn't known about. I did catch a glimpse of a Mola which, naturally, swam right over Mike's head while he was taking a picture of a hermit crab. He still hasn't seen a Mola yet... Vis was around 20 feet or so.

07/05/04
Shore diving with Nick Radov and Dave Chamberlin. Dive one was at North Monastery. Conditions were fairly nice and we covered most of the wall all the way out to Carmel Meadows and came back through the kelp beds. Vis was around 25 feet and we didn't see anything spectacular until right at the end of the dive when I found a Mosshead Warbonnet out in the open. Unfortunatly Nick was in the process of calling the dive right as I was trying to signal Dave and Nick. In the confusion the warbonnet made good its escape. Oh well.

For dive 2 we moved to the Breakwater. Dave and I did a practice dive in about 20 foot of water while Nick met up with Dionna and went for a fun dive. Vis was actually fairly nice; I'd say in the 30 foot range.

06/27/04
More from Sami.

Forecast was iffy, and we had talked to Jim about keeping it simple and just diving in Monterey side, but Jim wanted to 'look around the corner' first anyway. The ride was OK, as wind was lower than forecast and seas were not too bad.

1st dive at "Aumentos (wink wink)" although the ride seemed awfully long and it sure looked like the Pinnacles! ;-) ;-) Dave was checking out a new drysuit, and Clinton was shooting video of us embarrassing ourselves shooting a bag and hanging around playing decompressing divers. Vis at the surface was not great, but bottom vis cleared up to perhaps 40' or so at 70'-90' depth. Temp was 50 degrees. We drifter a LONG way while playing around under the bag. No problem, as this was our plan with the boat crew and pickup was swift; I like Valet Diving!

On our way back to Monterey side from "Aumentos" the forecasted afternoon winds never came, and it was a relatively smooth ride compared to our expectation. Oh, I still barfed, but I blame it on the winds that shifted South and blew back the diesel smell in my nose -- instant feeding time.

2nd dive at "Macabee Pinnacle (wink wink)" although it seemed awfully far from Macabee and it sure looked like Ballbuster! ;-) ;-) This time I took the camera, and Clinton and Dave were subjected to my incomprehensible hand waving direction. "Come closer. Come closer. Even closer. Uh huh, still closer. Good, hold that!". Vis near the surface was horrible green fog, which made for almost night dive conditions at the bottom where visibility cleared up a lot to perhaps 30'. Temp was 50 degrees. I got some shots as evidence, no art this time either:

http://www.baue.org/images/galleries/view_album.php?set_albumName=album24

Sami

06/19/04
Saturday's report is from Sami Laine.

I've heard this scuba diving thing is a lot of fun, so I decided to see for myself! :-D

Clinton *finally* successfully dragged me away from home, and I got my first dives in 4 months! We went on the Escapade morning trip, and conditions topside looked fabulous; looking at the harbor from Highway 1 you could just make out the reflection of the peninsula on the bay.

The boat wake looked murky leaving the harbor and we had a bunch of first-time boat divers on the boat, so Jim and Erik started the search for shallowish depth and decent vis from Carmel side.

1st dive at Inner Pinnacles was green and murky all the way to the bottom. At best we had perhaps 15' of visibility. Despite the completely flat topside, there was to our surprise still a little bit of surge even at 80'. We must have had some long-interval groundswell still running, this made ultra-close-focus-wide-angle shooting a bit challenging. I did get one decent shot of a snail on kelp, which was more than I could have hoped for shooting a fisheye lens under 8' dome port. Temp was 52 degrees and this scuba diving thing turned out to be fun!

For 2nd dive we moved in search of cleaner water, as the boat wake had looked clearer on our way over. We backtracked to just south of Pt Pinos and anchored along the kelp beds. This area turned out to be a nice looking rocky reef with Urticina anemones and good size lingcod. Visibility near surface was bad, but past 30' depth it opened up to about 25' which was perfectly nice, and we had a great time shooting Urticina pictures. Temp was 52 toasty degrees.

Vis certainly had dropped a lot from previous weekend reports, but I posted a couple of pics from the Green Murk:

http://homepage.mac.com/samilaine/PhotoAlbum49.html

06/13/04
Diving on the Escapade with John H and Pete. The plan was for 2 deep dives, and boy did we get some good diving in. As with the previous week the forecast was for high winds which didn't really materialize. We motored down to E3 for dive one. Pete, John and I swam from E3 proper over to Deep E3 and same along the base of the pinnacle. We found some nice sponges, a small vase sponge and a small school of Canary Rockfish. Vis was about 20 feet on the surface opening up to 60 or 70 at depth. Deco was a bit interesting at first. My trim is a bit different from my previous drysuit and I struggled a bit until Pete gave me the spool for the upline to hold onto (actually it would be more accurate to say I took it from him!). Anyway after that things went more smoothly.

Dive two was up at Lunaticos. Vis here was oustanding, probably 100 feet on the bottom. John joined Dave on this dive leaving Pete and Me as a twosome. We had a great dive; lots of big fish, colorful reef and a huge vase sponge at about 150. The best part of the dive, though, was the deco. The water column was absolutely filled with an incredible variety of jellyfish. Scrippsia pacifica, Pelagia colorata, Phacellophora camtschaica, Chrysaora fuscescens and many more I didn't recogize. Truly incredible.

06/05/04
Diving all day on the Cypress Sea with Pete and Geoffrey Teyssonniere de Gramont. The forecast was for some serious wind so I didn't have high expectations. As we left the dock, however, it didn't look so bad and Xcott decided to take the boat south. We ended up at Flintstones. I jumped in first and quickly discovered that there was a pretty serious current. It was all I could do to maintain station next to the boat, let alone swim to the anchor. I retreated to the swimstep and waited for the crew to setup a granny line. Eventually Pete, Geoffroy and I were able to pull ourselves down to the dive site though I was pretty well winded by the time we got there. Fortuantly the pinnacle offered protection and the rest of the dive was pretty mellow. When we left the pinnacle for our deco we caught the jellyfish express and floated off into the great blue with jellys of every description. Did I mention it was blue? Vis was probably close to 100 feet and the water was a beautiful shade of royal blue. A pretty insane introduction to local diving for Geoffroy but what the heck!

Dive two was at Honeymoon with similar vis but no current. Not much in the way of wave action either. I took the camera in on this dive. It had remained on the boat for the first dive due to the nutty current. I had just gotten one of my lightheads back from Light and Motion for an HID bulb replacement. Right as we arrived on the bottom I found several beautiful Scrippisia pacifica jellyfish I wanted to film. Unfortuantely the newly fixed lighthead failed to strike. A quick check revealed that it was completely full of water. Ugh. I suppose I could have lived without the light and just continued shooting but not wanting to further tempt fate I took the whole rig back to the boat and dropped it off. After that we had a very nice dive, though Geoffroy got pretty cold in the 48F water.

By now the wind was coming up so we headed back to the bay. The water was quite different there; greenish grey and very murky. We dropped the hook at 3 Kings or so for dive three. Geoffroy sat this one out due to being cold but Pete and I had a pleasant dive in the kelp, despite the 15 foot vis.

On the way back to the Harbor I called Backscatter and arranged for Dave Cool to come by and grab the now deceased light head, which he graciously did. Thanks Dave! We then stayed on the boat for the afternoon trip. Dave Chamberlin joined us and brought his scooter. Pete and Dave then became the scooter team while Geoffroy and I were the swimming team. Dive 4 of the day was at Eric's Pinnacle. Geoffroy and I swam around the pinnacle once and then explored some of the surrounding area. We found a rock that was completely covered with Metridiums just to the north. I hadn't realized that was there. Still murky in the bay but it was a good dive.

Dive number five was at Sammet Spire (aka McAbee Pinnacle). The highlight for this one was a big harbor seal that came by and checked us out several times during the dive.

05/29/04-5/31/04
Diving the Channel Islands with various buddies.

05/23/04
Diving with Chuck and Linda from the Black Dog. The original plan was to go out the the Farallons again but the weather forecast wasn't amenable so we went diving in Carmel instead. We anchored the boat at what Chuck is calling 2 boat pinnacle and made 2 dives there. I'm pretty sure this is the same spot Dave Minard calls Fanshell Beach Pinnacle. Anyway vis was quite variable, especially on the second dive. At its best on the south side of the rock it might have been 80 feet. OTOH a current came up during the second dive and brought in some really nasty water and reduced the vis in the surface water to less than 10 feet. Highlights included a nice school of mixed rockfish, several Dirona albolineata nudibranchs and one of the elusive little gunnels I see every now and again living in the staghorn bryozoans. I got a bit of video this time but it wasn't good enough for an ID.

05/15/04
Diving with Mike Jimenez and his girlfriend Meda off of the Escapade. This was an afternoon trip with several beginning level divers and further complicated by nearly 30 knot winds. In an effort to find something safe and sane for the group Jim decided on the barge for the first dive. Unfortunatly the anchor dragged and we ended up doing a 60 foot dive to a bare sandy bottom. Doh! Oh well, a good learning experience for all. Vis was terrible near the surface but quite good below about 15 feet.

For the second dive we moved out to Sammet Spire. This proved to be more successful. Vis was about 25 feet and the site featured a good cross-section of Monterey marine life including Metridiums, Corynactis, senorita fish, blue rockfish and even a large red octopus.

05/08/04
Alan's High Spot with Dave Chamberlin
Noonday Rock with Dave Chamberlin

05/01/04
Diving with Dave Chamberlin and Gary Banta on the Escapade. This was an afternoon trip and it was quite windy. We got as far as Point Pinos before turning around and looking for more sheltered waters. First dive was at Ballbuster. There was a thick, icky, green layer between 10 and 30 feet but it cleared up nicely on the bottom; maybe 40 feet. We had a nice dive and were treated to an extended visit by a free-swimming wolf eel.

Our second dive was at the Anchor Farm which in the deep shale beds off of Del Monte Beach. Vis here was a bit reduced but still quite tolerable. We didn't find any anchors proper but did find a large concrete block with a pile of very large chain. Highlights included an amazing density of Dialula sandiegensis, Flabellina iodinea and Tritonia festiva nudibranchs. We also found a squid which seemed to be worse for wear and even a gorgonian which is quite remarkable in only 70 feet of water.

Some video frames from these dives can be seen here.

04/24/04
Diving with Pete at the Breakwater. First dive was for practice and we did a bunch of bottle drills. Vis might have been 20 feet. For the second dive we swam out to the barge and back. Vis was quite variable; 5-25 feet as was the temperature; 50-57F. We didn't see anything particuarly remarkable.

04/17/04
Diving from the Escapade with Pete Gelbman. Nice day on the surface with only a moderate swell, very little wind, mixed sun with puffy white clouds and lots of whales and dolphins to keep us occupied. Unfortuantely the water was about the same color as Delia's new electric green drysuit. Vis might have been 20 feet but only barely. First dive was a Flintstones and Pete and I used the dive to practice running line and to sort out how much weight Pete was going to need with his new 400 gram thinsulate undergarmets. It's hard trying to find tieoffs at Flintstones; there's not a bare patch of rock to be found anywhere!

Second dive was at the pinnacles. Pete and I used most of the dive to practice s-drills, valve drills and bottle drills. As usual after a day of practice the conclusion was "we need even more practice!".

04/10/04
Diving at Monastery with Mike Jimenez and Barbara Dwyer. First dive was at the north end. It was foggy and relatively calm when we got in but the water still looked pretty stirred up from the storm that came through on Friday. Vis was maybe 25 feet at depth; less than that shallower. We didn't see anything particularly noteworthy.

The wind had come up strongly from the South during the first dive so we tried South Monastery for the second dive. This, unfortunately, exposed us to more swell and it was a bit surgier. We did make it out to a depth of 60 feet or so where the reef starts to get nicer but like the first dive managed not to see anything out of the ordinary. On the plus side my new Helios 9 HID light worked perfectly.

04/7/04
Pete Gelbman and I went for a splash last night at the Metridium Fields. It was a bit windy and therefore choppy but there didn't seem to be much swell. Vis was mediocre; 10-20 feet depending on where we were. Highlights included a one-spot fringhead, schools of anchovies and mexican scad, and several squid which cooperated for the camera by hanging out with us.

04/3/04
Diving with Dave Chamberlin off of the Escapade. We got off to a bit of a late start so even with fairly flat seas we decided against going south. We thought about splashing near Cypress Point but the water there was pretty green so we "settled" for outer pinnacles for the first dive. I never get tired of this spot as it features two of my favorite things in the world; hydrocoral and schools of blue rockfish. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary but that was OK with me as we had a very relaxing dive. Vis was a milky 30-40 feet; one of those days where your perception was that the vis was worse than it really was.

For dive 2 we took a look at lingcod reef but again the water was a bit green in closer to shore so we went back out to the pinnacles. Nothing wrong with that and like the first dive we had a nice dive without seeing anything remarkable; at least nothing that I could confirm. I thought I got a glimpse of a grunt sculpin but whatever it was ducked into a hole under a kelp holdfast and I couldn't get a good look at it.

03/27/04
Diving on the Cypress Sea with Nick Radov. This was originally an "extreme" trip but due to various scheduling and promotion snafus was abridged to only 2 dives. This didn't stop us from doing some nice diving though. The forecast was a bit scary from a wind perspective but it never really materialized which made for a nice day on the water. There was a larger than expected swell; maybe 10-12 feet but it didn't impact our diving much as we were below the surge most of the time.

The first dive of the day was at Flintstones. Nick, Joe Talavera, Damien Long and I decided to explore the North West side. I was first in line as we cruised down through the crack. Turning around I was treated to the sight of 3 divers in a line with HID lights slowly descending towards me. It looked for all the world like a line of 747s landing at SFO. Vis was a bit murky at the surface but at depth it was more like 50 feet. Highlights included lush gardens of gogonians, several very large Archidoris odhneri nudibranchs and a very nice school of blue rockfish.

The second dive was at Lunaticos (outer, outer, outer pinnacles). Nick and I found 2 wolf eels and I spotted several starry rockfish. Right about when we turned the dive Nick's drysuit started to leak and he suffered through a rather cold deco but otherwise it was another nice dive.

03/21/04
Diving with Dave Chamberlin and Mike Jimenez. For some reason there weren't any interesting sounding boat charters this weekend so we went shore diving. Conditions looked excellent with the buoy reporting about a 6 foot swell and very little wind. We decided on North Monastery for the first dive. It was still cloudy when we got it with only small waves breaking on the beach. Vis turned out to be excellent; I'd say 50 feet or more. I found 15 different species of nudibranch on the dive and Mike saw a leopard shark. I missed that due to the fact that I was staring at a mosshead warbonnet that I found in the shallows near the washrock. On the swim back in we were approached by a small harbor seal who played around with us for over 10 minutes in the shallows.

Since the first dive was so nice we stayed at N. Monastery for the second dive. By now the wind had finally kicked up a bit and the vis maybe went down a notch but it was still very nice. Highlights included several very large cabezon, more cool nudibranchs and the usual blue rockfish in kelp. Nice diving.

03/17/04
Late night insanity with Pete Gelbman and Mike Jimenez. We met at breakwater at 7:30 where we ran into Frank and Debby Degnan as they were getting out. They reported nice conditions so after a chat we eagerly geared up and went for a splash. Vis was around 25-30 feet but with lots of that stringy algae in the water. Surge was light. For some reason we didn't have much luck finding strange critters but it was a pleasant dive nonetheless.

03/14/04
Pete Gelbman and I were on the Escapade yesterday morning for some nice relaxing recreational diving. Monterey was sunny but a very thick fog layer started at about Point Pinos and extended all the way down to Carmel Bay. As such there was very little wind and the swell was only about 6-7 feet. First dive was at Outer Butterfly House. The water looked good when we jumped in but got worse as we got deeper and was probably only 20-25 feet on the bottom.

Shortly after we arrived at the bottom my primary light went out. I turned it off and back on and it re-struck for about 30 seconds and went back out again. I called Pete over to have a look at it but he didn't see anything obviously wrong. The canister was dry and the light head looked OK. Huh. Oh well. After a couple more attempts to re-strike the light which this time were totally unsuccessful I gave up and put the light away for the rest of the dive. The dive itself was pleasant enough with lots of pretty hydrocoral and such.

After we got back on the boat we started trying to diagnose the light. The canister was fine but the light wouldn't strike. After removing the handle/reflector assembly a careful look at the test tube revealed a bit more moisture than I might expect from condensation. Right as I was noticing this the ballast started to hiss and pop and some ugly brown foam started extruding from the ballast where the plate with the cord attachment is bolted into the rest of the ballast. I realized the light was still on from my last attempt to strike it and turned it off. Too late as it turns out as the test tube shot off with a loud pop, flew across the boat and struck another diver. Doh! Fortunately nobody was hurt. Guess it's a sign that now might be a good time to upgrade to an 18 watt light. :-/

The second dive was at Dali's wall. Vis was in the 15-20 foot range. Nothing special on this dive except for a couple of rather large lings.

03/06/04
Diving with Mike Jimenez and Patty Harris on the Escapade. Very nice conditions today. Partly cloudy with about a 5-6 foot NW swell. It wasn't as windy as I had feared so we headed south. The water kept getting cleaner and cleaner the further south we went. It was an ugly green in the bay, blue green in Carmel and downright amazing at Flintstones which is where we jumped in. Vis was easily 80 feet and we basically circumnavigated the top of the pinnacle. Patty found a nice wolf eel right at the end of the dive.

For the second dive we moved back north to the East Pinnacles. Vis wasn't quite as nice here but was still a respecable 40 feet or so. The highlight for me was finding a largish lingcod with what looked like another lingcod in its mouth with just the tail sticking out. Good stuff.

Mike got some nice pictures which you can view here.

02/23/04
D3 with Joe Talavera

02/22/04
Diving with Sami on the Escapade. Conditions were pretty nice with sun and relatively calm seas. First dive was at the Outer Pinnacles. Vis was easily in the 50 foot range. We tooled around on the bottom for a while admiring the hydrocoral and blue rockfish. Then after coming up to 20 feet I spent some time shooting the numerous sea nettles near the surface.

We stayed at the pinnacles for the second dive and Sami and I decided to spend some quality time with the jellyfish. We shot a bag and drifted for 45 minutes while filming jellys. Not a bad way to spent a dive.

02/14/04
Valentine's Day Reef with Joe Talavera

02/11/04
Pete Gelbman and I took advantage of the nice flat seas and headed down to Monastery yesterday for a night dive. Indeed the ocean looked like a pond with some little knee-slappers and little else in the way of wave action. Vis was only so-so at around 25 feet but we still got a good show from the local harbor seals. Within a minute or two of our descent (and before I could turn the camera on) a very large seal swam up and stopped just shy of touching my light. Not coincidentally there was a rockfish in the beam of the light about 6 inches away. After what seemed like an eternity while the seal pondered how best to attack the fish without scaring it away he finally pounced - and missed. Oh well, lots more where that one came from.

I haven't reviewed the footage yet but I do know the video camera was pointed at a seal eating a fish at least twice. Good stuff though the lack of vis made it harder to track the seals as they raced around us. At one point there were at least 3 and I think maybe 4 pushing us and each other around in their efforts to catch fish. One of them bumped Pete hard enough to disconnect his drysuit inflator! The action was pretty much non-stop for the whole dive.

We also saw several small squid.

02/01/04
Deep E3 with John Heimann and Joe Talavera

01/17/04
Diving the Pete and John H. on the Cypress Sea. Somedays it's probably best to just stay home. I'm still too enthusiastic to have learned this lesson properly but this day really, really sucked. Combine a 14 foot NW swell with close to 30 knot winds and you have a recipe for a bad day. We slogged our way to Carmel in hopes of finding a deep dive worth doing. The only place that looked remotely diveable was the East Pinnacle Ridge. In actual fact the diving wasn't so bad. Pete, John and I got in a 130-150 for 25 minutes kind of dive in. The reef here is a bit bleak but we did see a vase sponge at 150 (shallowest I've ever seen one by far). Several big vermilions and a few starry and canary rockfish rounded things out. The hard part was getting back on the boat. While handing the camera back up to Xcott the lens cap came off and I scratched the lens again. (^#$%#)#&#&! >:-( Not as badly as from Alaska but damaging a very expensive lens on a dive where I didn't shoot a single frame of video is very discouraging.

For the second dive we ended up at Ballbuster. Vis here was pretty low but we had a little bit of protection. We did see 3 wolf eels which is nice but otherwise it was a forgettable dive. The deco was most unpleasant as there was a moderate to strong current and we dared not leave the anchor line for fear of boat traffic.

01/24/04
Diving with Sami and Mike Jimenez on the Escapade. We got off to a bad start by leaving Gary Banta at the dock. Doh! How did THAT happen? :-( On the plus side we ran into a group of rizzo's dolphins escorting 4 gray whales off of Cypress Point. The dolphins allowed us to place the boat ahead of the whales and shut down the engines. We did this 3 times and were rewarded by very close encounters. The whales would spout right behind the boat dive under us and continue on the otherside without missing a beat. Very cool.

First dive was at Mono Lobo wall. Conditions weren't great but not terrible either. 25 foot vis and moderate surge. Nothing notable on the dive but I did get some close footage of some blue rockfish.

Mike started getting really seasick during the surface interval. He sat out the second dive which was a night dive at the Pescadero Wash Rock. This was really surgy and the vis was pretty low; 15-20 feet. Sami and I called it at 30 minutes and bailed. The ride back was quite exciting. Big seas at night! :-O

01/17/04
Diving with Pete Gelbman on the Cypress Sea. It's a relatively nice day with about an 8 foot West swell, sunny skies and light winds. We've got a mixed crowd and Phil decides on Honeymoon Rocks for the first dive before getting more adventurous. Visibility isn't as nice as last week; maybe 30 feet and cloudy. (Pete says less but he's wrong! ;-) Anyway the Gorgonians here have really gotten big lately and we also found a small Wolf Eel. Later we found a small group of about 4 large Vermilion Rockfish.

The less experienced divers seemed to do fine on the first dive so Phil headed South for dive 2. Our original plan was to do only 2 bigger dives but the lure of a nice spot like Yankee Breakers got Pete and me back into the water anyway. It's been years since I've dived this spot and I don't recall ever seeing this patch of reef before. A pity too as it's really nice. How come we haven't been diving this? Like Que Paso the South and East sides of the reef were more dramatic than North and West. In particular after sloping down to 100 feet the South edge features several successive ledges with 15-20 foot sheer walls. This would have been a great place for a 150 foot dive but we decided this wasn't the time. Anyway the highlight of the dive was a good sized Basket Star sitting on one of the many Gorgonians at the top of the first ledge.

Some still frames from the video I shot on these dives can be seen here.

01/10/04
Mono Lobo with Dave Chamberlin
Aumentos with Dave Chamberlin

01/04/04
Diving on the Escapade with Dave and Sami. Nice to have you back in the water Dave! We missed you! Weather couldn't have been much nicer. Sunny, light swell, blue water, no wind. First dive therefore was at the Fanshell Beach Pinnacles. I love this spot, lots of interesting encrusting sponges, big acorn barnacles and very dramatic terrain. There's also a Eolf Eel on the east side of the rock that I've seen the last 3 or 4 times I've been here, including this dive. We also had a nice visit from a couple of Sea Lions.

For the second dive we decided to explore near Point Pinos. In retrospect we were a bit further South than we should have been but nothing ventured, nothing gained right? The reef was to say the least a bit dull. Silty rocks with tube worms and little other life. OTOH the local Sea Lions were very, very friendly and after a bit we found ourselves off in the sand playing with them. This went on for over half an hour and the only thing that ended the dive was a lack of breathign gas on our part. Fun stuff.

12/20/03
Deep E3 with John Heimann

12/13/03
Pinos Buoy Jackpot with Beto and John

12/07/03
I wonder how many times I've started a dive report with "Conditions were actually much better than expected" or something to that effect? Anyway today was yet another example. Someday I'll learn to not be surprised. Monterey diving rules. I was diving with Patty Harris today on the half-empty Escapade. As recently as Friday I'd heard the boat was supposed to be full but there were a whole bunch of no-shows including my intended dive buddy who shall remain nameless. They missed some pretty good diving.

Listening to the marine weather on the way down to Monterey I was heartened by the buoy readings which indicated a measly 8 foot swell; a far cry from the 12-15 forecasted a day or two ago. Arriving in Monterey it actually looked nice and sure enough Jim took the boat around the corner. We dropped anchor at the outer pinnacles and the water was the prettiest cobalt blue you can imagine. There was certainly a largish swell but so what? The anchor was on the west side of the site and we hardly had to move before finding some great hydrocoral. Down inside the canyons (or at least some of them depending on orientation to the swell) the surge was manageable and we got in a good dive. Swimming through a school of blue rockfish on the way back to the anchor line I happened to look up and realized I could not only see the boat but also the ladder on the swimstep and two divers getting back onto the boat. A glance at my gauge revealed that we were still at 70 feet. Now that's what I call vis! :-D

In fairness not everyone on the boat seemed as excited about the conditions and several were suffering from Mal de Mar so we headed back to the bay for dive 2 in more protected waters. We pulled into Hopkins Deep Reef right as the Cypress Sea was leaving. Vis was good here too; maybe 50 feet near the surface and more like 25 near the bottom where it was stirred up. As we got to the bottom I found a finless mola near death on the bottom. I decided to film it. As I was starting to get the camera ready Patty pointed out the two healthy molas swimming right in front of us! By the time I got the camera on they were spooked (for good reason I think based on the proximity of sea lions and the number of dead molas we saw) and I missed the shot. Oh well, still a nice dive. Lots of sea lion activity, good vis and a number of Sea Butterflies up in the water column.

Fun stuff all around. Keep this in mind when you're reading about the big swell during the week and you're wondering whether it's worth the drive down on Saturday.

11/25/03
Kinder-Garden (Point Lobos) with Beto and Susan

11/23/03
Carmel Pinnacles and Lingcod Reef with Chuck Tribolet

11/16/03
Pinnacle Point Wall with Beto

11/13/03
Breakwater with Eric Maiken

11/05/03
So I came into work on Monday and looked at the weather forecast. The Wednesday night forecast really stood out: WED NIGHT...NW WINDS 5 TO 15 KT...BECOMING S OVERNIGHT WIND WAVES 1 TO 3 FT. S SWELL 2 TO 4 FT.

Sounds like a night dive at Monastery to me! :-D

The forecast didn't change much as last night approached and with the reports of good vis at breakwater it had all the makings of a really excellent evening. I ended up diving with Pete Gelbman. We got off to a late start but in the end it didn't matter much. North Monastery looked like a lake and the 3/4 moon overhead provided plenty of ambient light for walking to the water and surface navigation. Vis was easily in the 40 foot range. It took a bit for the harbor seal show to get going but once it did we got an excellent performance. 2 seals spent the rest of the dive hanging out with us while chasing fish. I saw 2 rockfish caught and eaten but I'm not sure I got it on video. Following rapidly moving seals around in thick kelp with video arms sticking out on each side can be an adventure!

BTW to give you an idea how calm it was at one point I realized I was filming seals in front of an eelgrass background. I looked at my depth gauge and found that I was at 16 feet; with hardly any surge!

Anyway eventually my video lights gave out and Pete indicated his suit was leaking a bit so we turned the dive and headed for home. On the way back to the beach we came across a 3-4 foot long Angel Shark resting on the sand next to the wall. I'd seen one of these once in San Diego but it was a first for Monterey. Cool stuff. Other animals of note included 2 masked pricklebacks and a brown irish lord.

Find a way to go diving this weekend. The swell looks to come up a bit from last night but it still should be nice.

11/02/03
Diving on the Escapade yesterday afternoon with Sami, Erin Maxwell and Mike Jimenez. Conditions were so nice as to be almost ridiculous. It was flat, flat, flat, sunny and the water was a nice clear blue. Jim reported that the squid boats were working the Cypress Point area for some reason so instead of heading to Carmel we decided to stay in the bay (sort of). First dive was on the southwest side of Point Pinos. It isn't often that conditions allow you to dive there. The bottom there is a mix of big spikey rocks and sand channels. While there aren't any huge walls or pinnacles there is plenty of relief for interesting things to grow. In the deeper areas (>60 feet) there is even some pretty nice hydrocoral and in the shallower areas a nice kelp forest with lots of rockfish and schools senorita fish. Erin and I also saw several rather large sheephead. Visibility was probably 40 feet and surge mild.

Dive two was at Ballbuster. By now the sun was starting to set but we still had some natural light, particularly at the beginning of the dive. Vis was again excellent. We didn't see anything out of the ordinary (no wolf eels this time) but as usual the site was beautiful. Nice day of diving.

Sami got some nice photos with his new 10D.

10/26/03
Back on the water again. This time on the Cypress Sea with John Heimann. Conditions remained excellent. There was an "advanced" class on the boat so we couldn't get too adventurous. First dive was at Aumentos which is a surprisingly nice dive in calm seas and 35 foot vis. We saw a number of very large Cabezon including one that is probably still seeing spots from my video lights. Also there was a nice school of blue rockfish and some fairly pretty scenery.

As the students in the class evidently didn't have any issues during their dive at Aumentos we decided to dial it up a bit for dive 2 which ended up being on the southwest side of Point Pinos. This was a very nice dive. Good vis (35 feet or more), more hydrocoral than I would have guessed and a nice long deco in the kelp with a school of rockfish.

10/25/03
Diving off of the Escapde with Pete Gelbman as part of Delia's Subtidal charter. Conditions were great; blue water, flat seas and sunny. We decided on Local's Ledge for the first dive. Pete and I immediately went looking for deeper water. Vis was an excellent 40 feet or so. After some poking around I found a very nice rock with lots of hydrocoral and spent the balance of the diving filming that. During our drift deco I'm told a speedboat ran right over our marker buoy. Watch it guys!

Our second dive was at Outer Butterfly House. Vis here wasn't as good; maybe 25 feet or even less. Jim put us right on top of the nice hydrocoral but naturally we didn't see it and swam around a bit before coming back to where we started (and to where the good diving was). Oh well. I still go some filming in.

10/22/03
Midweek insanity diving at South Monastery last night with Pete Gelbman and Keith Wahl. The swell was from the west and I think Monastery had at least a little protection from Point Lobos. It was still sloshing a bit but the entry/exit conditions didn't look too bad so we gave it a go. Vis was another story altogether. Close in it was really stirred up and no better than 10 feet. It did open up once we got out to the end of the reef in about 60 feet of water; call the vis there 20-25 feet. The good news is that it seemed mostly to be silt and particulate matter; the water wasn't green with algae like last weekend.

The plan was to film harbor seals but for some reason they weren't cooperating last night. We finally saw one at about 35 minutes into the dive but it didn't stick around like usual to take advantage of our lights while catching fish. Just as I was starting to despair a Spotted Ratfish showed up and I happily spent the next 20 minutes filming it (ratfish are very cooperative subjects). Pete and Keith seemed to have a good time hovering above me and watching, especially since our lights attracted a small group of squid which were buzzing around us.

On the way back we discovered that at least one harbor seal was right up in the shallows eating what looked like anchovies. The little fish were jumping out of the water and running into us in an effort to escape. The seal seemed to like our lights and kept close to us so I dropped back down to try and film him but the vis wasn't so hot and I quickly ran out of battery time on the video lights. Oh well, next time for the harbor seals. It was a fun dive anyway.

10/18/03
This report brought to you by Sami Laine and the letter S.

Forecast was a bit iffy, with a small craft advisory for today and tonight. When we got out of the harbor, it was reasonably nice actually; low winds, very little in the way of wind waves and longish swell. We talked Jim into peeking around the corner to see if we could go to Carmel today. We wanted to initiate Mike into 'dry diving' (more on that later) in a nice setting!

Booming surf was exploding off Pt Pinos in quite spectacular way, it looked like depth charges going off! However, boating was actually pretty easy and nice, with blue skies.

Dive #1: Outer Pinnacles. 8'-15' visibility, 2'-10'+ surge (depending on depth and position on the wall). Temp 52 degrees. A wild one! We descended into the green semi-darkness following the twisting and snaking anchor line and soon were flying back and forth in the thick soupy twilight over heavy low-lying kelp and very dense, colorful hydrocoral. What an awesome dive, with HID beams popping colors off the wall. South side vertical cracks provided reasonable protection from surge cutting it down enough to look at the small critters. This was Mike's first dive in his new suit, and what an initiation it was! He was going with the flow of the surge, hovering coolly just over the scenery flying underneath while Clinton repositioned the anchor. He looked like he had been diving dry for a long time.

Except he technically still hasn't dived dry! On the surface we discovered that his underwear was completely soaked, and his new (used) suit needs to go back for a pressure test and some repairs... Despite all this thrown at him, he was still smiling and calling it a 'no big deal' and 'great dive'. You gotta love insanity like that!!

Dive #2: Hopkins Reef. 10'-15' visibility, 2' surge. Temp unrecorded. Clinton and I went in as a team. We arrived at the bottom in the middle of a big Metridium field. I checked the anchor, and as I looked back up Clinton thumbed the dive. Oh? Thumbs? Thumbs! We're outta here. A couple of minutes later we're back on top, and Clinton tells me he's soaked! Turns out his neck seal edge was twisted inside in one spot, which was enough. Oh well.

Nice day despite it's challenges, followed by too much sushi at Sapporo.

10/12/03
Mile Buoy with Pete and Ian
Ballbuster with Pete and Ian

10/08/03
Yet another report from Sami Laine.

No real surf, some surgy water movement back and forth at the beach. Temp 50 degrees, visibility about 15' way out over the sand flats.

I took my EOS-10D digital SLR in for the first try of macro shooting, here's a few pictures.

So, what was the biggest difference between my Olympus C-4040 and the Canon SLR? This time *I* got to choose when the shutter releases! :-) Yeah! :-D

I'll leave the actual description of the diving to the other team members (nudge nudge)! :-)

Sami

10/04/03
Aumentos and Eric's with Mike Jimenez and Sami.

10/03/03
Was diving today at Point Lobos with Pete Gelbman. We did one long (just shy of 2 hours) dive exploring the Granite Point area. Visibility inside the cove was sketchy due to a moderate swell but at the opening of the cove it was a solid 30-40 feet. A bit milky perhaps but a nice blue color. The highlight for me was finding a new (for me) nudibranch: Cadlina sparsa. I tried pretty hard to get an image of it but it was very small and in an inconvenient location so I'm pretty sure I failed in that mission. Oh well. Other highlights included a nice school of blue rockfish and a couple of quick harbor seal visits.

9/28/03
Guest report (again) this week from Sami Laine.

But back to today. Getting my gear ready was really strange: everything was actually dry, even the liftbag and the inside of my hood! Weird, I hope that doesn't happen again. :-) I was hoping to get my new EOS 10D camera and housing in the water but I wasn't able to update my camera insurance in time. With my history of floods, I thought it just might be a better idea to leave the camera on the boat.

I was diving off the Cypress Sea with Clinton, and it seemed very likely we would be seeing a lot of unusual sea life today, as neither of us had any kind of image recording device with us. Topside was a bit drizzly to begin with, but ended up a nice overcast day. Forecasted high winds were not a problem, and swell was moderate.

1st dive: East Pinnacle. Visibility was nice, solid 30ft or better, temp unrecorded but I felt warmer than in Hawaii (drysuit, Thinsulate & argon apparently beats swimming trunks in thermal protection). We ended up hovering motionless in the midwater on top of the main pinnacle for well over 20 minutes; after the first 10 min the dense school of Blue Rockfish accepted us as a part of the school. Neither of us has ever gotten this 'together' with the fish, we were eventually completely enveloped by the fish that were at times within inches of our masks. Previous nights 4 hours of sleep apparently put us mentally right on the same page with them... Extremely Cool!

2nd dive: Carmel City Beach Reef. This is the area straight in front of downtown Carmel's main beach, a bit north of the Outer Butterfly House and Outer Copper Roof House. The area is surprisingly pretty; think a mixture of Outer Butterfly House vertical structure minus the hydrocoral meets Lingcod Reef shale type rock with sponges of all persuasions. Visibility was still decent, between 20 and 30 feet. Temperature still a mystery, but still felt toasty. We spent the dive sightseeing in the kelp in 50-60 foot range, enjoying the scenery.

3rd dive: Pescadero Washrock a.k.a. Fire Rock. We were the last ones in after I fell asleep sitting upright in the wheelhouse with a soda in my hand. Our dive started off with some uneasy moments as we witnessed a buddy team experiencing some problems; they were part of an 'advanced class', and had a buddy system failure followed with the remaining diver doing some yo-yo diving followed by unintended Polaris-type ascent. Clinton and I ascended a bit slower and he surfaced to check that everyone was OK before we continued the dive. The visibility was still good, we had at least 25 ft. The water column was full of Egg Yolk Jellies (Phacellophora camschatica), and the edge of the kelp forest was teeming with young-of-the-year Rockfish. We spent the rest of the dive just inside the kelp, looking outward through the schools of tiny Rockfishies. Very nice way to end the day.

Very good, very mellow diving. It was fun to dive without a camera once, it slowed me down even more and gave me some ideas about shooting I hadn't thought about before. Back next weekend.

Sami

09/23/03
Diving on the Cypress Sea for the BAUE charter. The first dive was at Flintstones and I teamed up with Patty Harris. Vis was very good; I'd call it 50 feet or more at depth. Nothing out of the ordinary for this dive but that's OK since the usual at Flintstones is very, very good indeed. Highlights included dense corynactis, quite a few cowries, a harbor seal, huge schools of blue rockfish and several sea lions.

For the second dive I buddied up with Nick Radov. After discussing our options with Xcott we settled on Malcontent. This is a series of north-south ridges in between Flintstones and Que Paso. It proved to be a good choice. The west side of the reef was less interesting from an encrusting life standpoint but the water there was clear and blue. At one point Ian and Todd scootered by and I have to think I could see them from 80 feet away. The inside of the reef was very, very pretty with nice heads of hydrocoral, lots of corynactis, several walls of metridiums and even a small wolf eel. Very nice diving.

I sat out the third dive at Outer Butterfly House with a bit of head congestion. The other divers reported 20 foot vis or so. There was also a big Mola mola swimming around on the surface.

09/14/03
Diving again with John Heimann at Point Lobos. We did one big dive going out into Bluefish Cove; again swimming as John's scooter was still out for repairs. This time we headed out more towards Twin Peaks. Vis was mediocre and there was a relatively strong tidal current running out of the bay. I've never seen that before at Point Lobos. We did start the dive during the ebb from a very high tide. It sure made the swimming out easier than last week! The reef near our turn point was very pretty even with the lousy vis and featured nice sponges and numerous gorgonians. The deco was also quite entertaining as 4 separate harbor seals kept coming by to keep us company.

09/7/03
Diving with John Heimann at Point Lobos. John's scooter was in the shop so we were swimming. First dive was a big dive out to Beto's Reef. Damn that's a long swim! Vis was great though we didn't see anything particularly out of the ordinary. The 20 foot stop and switch to oxygen was a bit more interesting than usual as John and I found that our guages disagreed fairly dramatically as to the depth. Based on location and environmental clues we eventually determined that it was John's guage that was off. Oddly it had matched mine during the deeper parts of the dive but in the shallows it read 10 feet too deep. It even thought our surface swim out was part of the dive. It was an older Uwatec and John has a new one on order but this failure was a new one on me. We looked the gauge over and it didn't have anything under the boot or elsewhere that might have been pressing on the transducer. Odd.

09/1/03
Diving with Nick and Pete on the Cypress Sea. Details can be found below:

Flintstones
Local's Ledge

08/28/03
I'm back from Alaska. Hopefully I'll get around to writing a trip report this time! I do have a couple video clips up; Salmon and Bears and Yelloweye Rockfish.